Transcript The Scarlet Ibis

“The Scarlet Ibis”
By James Hurst
Setting
Time: 1912-1918—World
War I; summer
Place: North Carolina; cotton
farm; Old Woman Swamp.
Point of View
 “The Scarlet Ibis” is told through first
person point of view.
 The narrator is Doodle’s older brother.
 The narrator tells the story using flashback.
 Flashback: the author or narrator depicts
events which have taken place before the
present time.
Conflict
• Man vs. Man: the struggle
exists between the
narrator and Doodle.
• James Hurst uses the war
raging among “brothers”
in Europe to demonstrate
the conflict between the
narrator and Doodle.
Allusions
 There are three allusions in “The Scarlet Ibis.”
 Battle sites of WWI: Chateau-Thierry, Soissons,
and Belleau Wood
 The story of Hansel and Gretel: “It was too late to
turn back, for we had both wandered too far into a
net of expectations and had left no crumbs
behind.”
 Biblical Resurrection: “If we produced anything
less than the Resurrection, [Aunt Nicey] was going
to be disappointed.”
Foreshadowing
 Summer of 1918 was
devastating: plant growth was
replaced by death and decay.
 Clue that Doodle’s growth will
be replaced by death and decay.
 The fall of the Ibis.
 Clue that Doodle will fall later
in the story.
 Dead birds are “bad luck.”
Imagery
 Death imagery appears
throughout “The Scarlet Ibis.”
 Examples:
 Bleeding tree
 Rotting brown magnolia
 Ironweeds grew rank
 Graveyard flowers
 Mahogany box
 Black clouds, darkness
descended
Similes
 Simile: a comparison of two unlike things that uses the
word “like” or “as”
 Examples:
 “William Armstrong’s name is like putting a big tail
on a small kite.”
 “Promise hung about us like leaves.”
 “Hope no longer hid in the dark palmetto thicket,
but perched like a cardinal in the lacy toothbrush
tree, brilliantly visible.”
Metaphors
 Metaphor: a comparison of two unlike things without
using the words “like” or “as”
 Examples:
 “There is within me (and with sadness I have watched
it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of
love, much as our blood sometimes bears the seed of
our destruction.”
 “Pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears
two vines, life and death.”
Symbols
 Symbol: a person, place,
or thing used to
represent something
else.
 The main symbol in the
story is the scarlet ibis
which represents
Doodle.
Theme
 One of the possible themes of “The Scarlet Ibis” is
pride is destructive.
 Lines like the following support this theme:
 “All of us must have something to be proud of.”
 “Pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that
bears two vines, life and death.”